Business and human rights in liberal markets

One central facet of contemporary liberal governance is the creation and liberalisation of markets, including human rights-relevant markets, such as those for housing, healthcare and labour. This introduces a possible tension between business profit and universal fulfilment of rights. Despite the field of business and human rights developing rapidly in the last 20 years, human rights principles do not yet seriously inform either markets for human rights resources or the deeper legal structure of business. This paper elaborates how human rights principles can inform market governance. It does so by theorising structural, investigative and relatively egalitarian components of human rights principles and contextualising these in relation to specific market structures. In conclusion, the paper argues that human rights-based market regulation should be used to address some of the worst manifestations of contemporary capitalism.